A month in, outrage over Gulf oil spill grows

A Louisiana National Guard motor grader grades a beach as oil laps onto the shore on Elmer's Island in Grand Isle, La., Thursday, May 20, 2010. Oil from last month's Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico has started drifting ashore along the Louisiana coast.

GRAND ISLE, La.  Thick, sticky oil crept deeper into delicate marshes of the Mississippi Delta, an arrival dreaded for a month since the crude started spewing into the Gulf, as anger and frustration mounted over efforts to plug the gusher from a blown-out well and contain the spill.

Up to now, only tar balls and a sheen of oil had come ashore. But brown and vivid orange globs and sheets of foul-smelling oil the consistency of latex paint have begun coating the reeds and grasses of Louisiana’s wetlands, home to rare birds, mammals and a rich variety of marine life.

A deep, stagnant ooze sat in the middle of a particularly devastated marsh off the Louisiana coast where Emily Guidry Schatzel of the National Wildlife Federation was examining stained reeds.

“This is just heartbreaking,” she said with a sigh. “I can’t believe it.”

On Friday, officials in the island resort community of Grand Isle, south of New Orleans, announced they were closing the public beach because thick globs of oil that looked like melted chocolate were washing up.

Ralph Morgenweck of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said countless animals could be feeling the effects of the spill, though workers have found only a handful hurt or injured.

BP PLC was leasing the Deepwater Horizon rig when it exploded April 20, killing 11 workers and triggering the massive spill. The company conceded Thursday what some scientists have been saying for weeks: More oil is flowing from the leak than BP and the Coast Guard had previously estimated.

“It’s anger at the people who are supposed to be driving the ship don’t have any idea what’s going on,” said E.J. Boles, 55, a musician from Big Pine Key, Fla. “Why wouldn’t they have any contingency plan? I’m not a genius and even I would have thought of that.”

The BP executive in charge of fighting the spill, Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles, said he understands the public frustration. He told the CBS “Early Show” on Friday that in the worst case scenario, the gusher could continue until early August, when a new well being drilled to cap the flow permanently could be finished.

But Suttles said he believes the rich Gulf environment will recover, in part because it is a large body of water and has withstood other oil spills.

“I’m optimistic, I’m very optimistic that the Gulf will fully recover,” Suttles said on CBS.

A live video feed of the underwater gusher, posted online after lawmakers exerted pressure on BP, is sure to fuel the anger.

It shows what appears to be a large plume of oil and gas still spewing into the water next to the stopper-and-tube combination that BP inserted to carry some of the crude to the surface. The House committee website where the video was posted promptly crashed because so many people were trying to view it.

“BP has lost all credibility ... It’s clear that they have been hiding the actual consequences of this spill,” said U.S. Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass.

At least 6 million gallons have gushed into the Gulf since the explosion, more than half of what the Exxon Valdez tanker spilled in Alaska in 1989. A growing number of scientists believe it’s more.

BP spokesman Mark Proegler told The Associated Press that the mile-long tube inserted into a leaking pipe over the weekend is capturing 210,000 gallons of oil a day – the total amount the company and the Coast Guard have estimated is gushing into the sea – but some is still escaping. He would not say how much.

Washington, meanwhile, has turned up the pressure on BP.

The Obama administration asked the company to be more open with the public by sharing such information as measurements of the leak and the trajectory of the spill. BP has been accused of covering up the magnitude of the disaster.

Also, the Environmental Protection Agency directed BP to employ a less toxic form of the chemical dispersants it has been using to break up the oil and keep it from reaching the surface.

BP is marshaling equipment for an attempt as early as Sunday at a “top kill,” which involves pumping heavy mud into the top of the blown-out well to try to plug the gusher.

If it doesn’t work, the backup plans include a “junk shot” – shooting golf balls, shredded tires, knotted rope and other material into the well to clog it up.

“We’re now looking at a scenario where response plans include lighting the ocean on fire, pouring potent chemicals into the water, and using trash and human hair to stop the flow of oil,” said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, in a letter to President Barack Obama calling for a formal moratorium on new offshore drilling permits. “If this is the backup plan, we need to rethink taking the risk in the first place.”

Patience was wearing thin among state and local officials who called on Obama to take a larger role in the fight against oil invading the Louisiana coast.

“Everything in that marsh is dead as we speak,” Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser said after touring the clogged marshes. “Had you fallen off that boat yesterday and come up breathing that stuff, you probably wouldn’t be here, either.”